Falcon Design Review

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Gwynne Shotwell Vice President
1 Rocket Road Hawthorne (Los Angeles) CA
90250 USA
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Founded with the singular goal of providing
highly reliable, low cost space transportation
Dragon
Falcon 1
Falcon 9
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Highlights

• Designed, developed and qualified a new launch
  system in less than 4 years
• Executed 2 Demonstration Falcon 1 flights and
  gathered enough data on the vehicle and
  supporting systems to transition to production in
  2008
• Numerous improvements made to the Falcon 1
  vehicle, ground system and Quality processes
  based on first two demonstrations
• Initiated development of Falcon 9 and Dragon
• Have 12 flights on the manifest Falcon 9 fully
  booked for 2009

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Facilities
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Factory Geared for Production
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Current Launch Manifest
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Hardware at launch site.
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Falcon 1 History

• Detailed design development started in 2003
• 25 Mar 06 - Maiden launch in less than four
  years
• 21 Mar 07 - 2nd launch reached 297 km altitude,
  5.1 km/s
• June 2008 - Next flight with USG Malaysian co-
  payloads
• NASA, SpaceX and Space Services secondaries

Omelek Island Launch Site
Liftoff!
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Falcon Launch Vehicle Evolution
Falcon 9 5m Fairing (2009)
Falcon 9 Dragon (2009)
Falcon 1e (2010)
Falcon 1 Demo Flight 1 3/2006
Falcon 1 Demo Flight 2 3/2007
Falcon 1 Flight 3 2Q 2008
F1 and F9 share similar architecture F9 uses
nearly the same Merlin 1C engine Similar
software and avionics Similar launch and ground
operations Lessons learned from Falcon 1
applied to F9

• Improved vehicle robustness
• Better procedures added personnel
• Improved software health monitoring launch
  automation

Improved vehicle robustness Added slosh
baffles Upgraded engine from Merlin 1A to
Merlin 1C Lighter weight 2014 Al upper stage
Higher thrust engine Lengthened first
stage Larger payload fairing Al-Li upper
stage Available starting 2010
Initial vehicle
Common first and second stages (including
engines, interstage, etc.) Dragon used for Space
Station servicing missions, up and down crew and
cargo transport, orbital experiments, etc.
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Falcon 9 Rocket

• Designed to NASA man-rating safety margins.
• Engine out reliability similar to Saturn I
  Saturn V.
• Lift off mass is 325 tons standard, 885 tons for
  heavy.
• 10 tons to LEO, 5 tons to GTO.
• Pricing starts at 37M all inclusive

Thrust frame plumbing for nine engines
First stage mated with thrust frame
Raising first stage tank on to test stand
Falcon 9 first stage tank in production - Same
diameter and length as a Boeing 737
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Falcon 9 Development Progress

• Successfully tested 1, 2, and 3 Merlin engines on
  1st stage
• 5-engine and 9-engine tests scheduled for late
  May/June and August of this year

2-engine 18 Jan 2008
1-engine 20 Nov 2007
3-engine 8 March 2008
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Dragon Spacecraft
Nose Cone
Berthing Mechanism
Pressurized Section
Isogrid Pressure Vessel Panel
Service Section
Draco Thrusters
Trunk (Unpressurized)
Dragon Heat Shield Prototype
Dragon Engineering Model
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Trunk Structure Composite Sample
13 scale Model Splash Test
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The Future for Commercial Spaceflight

• SpaceX is optimistic about the future of
  commercial space
• Dramatically lower cost, reliable launch will
  open new opportunities
• Communications, earth exploration and ultimately
  space exploration and travel
• How will it look in the near term
• Suborbital passenger flights
• More rapid growth in LEO exploitation
• in the mid term
• Ubiquitous, boring, launches to LEO
• Commercial space based destinations and new
  applications such as space based gaming
• Good progress towards developing Other-than-Earth
  based human camps
• Long term
• True space exploration and .a better
  appreciation for Earth

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